Officer who shot student had history of not following orders

12 warnings. 4 suspensions. Why was the NISD cop who killed an unarmed 14-year-old on the job?

By Brian Chasnoff / bchasnoff@express-news.net

Updated
9:33 am CDT, Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Shortly after a supervisor told Daniel Alvarado to stay with the victim of a minor assault and not search for the suspect, the school district officer ran into the backyard of a Northwest Side home with his gun drawn.

The November incident was not the first time the officer had ignored an order, according to records recently obtained by the San Antonio Express-News.

Since 2006, Alvarado's supervisors at the Northside Independent School District Police Department had reprimanded or counseled him on at least 12 occasions — six for not following orders. In other cases, Alvarado failed to show up for assignments, and his bosses appeared to suspect him of lying.

Alvarado was suspended at least four times, and his supervisors warned of impending termination four times — once even recommending it.

But Alvarado, 46, never was fired. Six months after the death of student Derek Lopez, as an investigation into the shooting continues, the 17-year veteran of the Police Department remains with the school district.

For Denys Lopez Moreno, the teen's mother, such revelations about Alvarado's employment have compounded her grief.

"They should've taken action a long time ago," Moreno said through tears. "He never followed orders. What makes you think he can deal with children?"

At school, Lopez was troubled. Expelled from elementary school, he spent years rotating through alternative schools and the county's juvenile justice academy. He'd been disciplined for possessing drugs, assault and theft, school officials said.

But at home, his family says he was a loving child who would cook for his younger brother and sister and help them with their homework.

Moreno hired an attorney in December to investigate the shooting.

The attorney, Wally Brylak, filed actions in court to force the school district to release records, including Alvarado's disciplinary history and a dispatch recording. He also subpoenaed witnesses for depositions, some of which contradict Alvarado's version of events.

Reached by phone, Alvarado declined to discuss the shooting. NISD spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said the officer has been placed on administrative duty since the incident.

The San Antonio Police Department has ruled the case a justified shooting. The Bexar County district attorney's office still is investigating.

The question of whether the shooting was justified is unrelated to the officer's history of disobeying orders, Assistant District Attorney Cliff Herberg said. The former is a legal matter; the latter, administrative.

Gonzalez echoed the distinction in a prepared statement.

"We are aware of Officer Alvarado's work history," he said. "While there are some documented incidents, it's important to note that they were administrative in nature, and had nothing to do with student safety."

But David Klinger, a former police officer who's now a professor of criminology and an expert in the use of deadly force, was surprised by Alvarado's disciplinary history.

"It sounds like they knew this guy was a problem," Klinger said. "If someone's insubordinate in a bunch of circumstances, it's logical to believe they'll be insubordinate in an important circumstance."

He added, "Mercifully, from what I know, these are rare. Most of the time when an officer has a problem following an order or doing their job, they get counseled so they learn how to do their job.

"If they don't, at some point they're terminated."

'Stay with the victim'

Recorded in depositions, witnesses' recollections offer a closer look at the Nov. 12 incident.

About 4:30 p.m., at Vista West Drive and Hunt Lane, a 13-year-old student from the Bexar County Juvenile Justice Academy was talking on a cell phone at a bus stop when Lopez, one of his classmates, punched him in the face.

"He just hit me once," the boy said in his deposition. "It wasn't a fight. It was nothing."

Alvarado, in a patrol car, saw the punch and said, "Freeze!"

Lopez ran. Alvarado sped off in pursuit, at one point leaving his patrol car and chasing the boy into the backyard of a nearby subdivision, according to a police report.

But Lopez slipped away.

"I just had one run from me," Alvarado, out of breath, told a dispatcher. "I saw an assault in progress. He punched the guy several times."

Alvarado returned to the bus stop. A police supervisor gave direction over the dispatch system.

"Let's not do any big search over there," the supervisor said. "Let's stay with the victim and see if we can identify (the suspect) that way. We can put one in the area, but let's concentrate on getting the info from the victim."

"I've got the victim right here," Alvarado said.

He then ordered the boy into his patrol car and set off in search of the suspect, according to the police report.

Accused of insubordination

In March 2006, Alvarado received an indignant letter from a supervisor.

Over the previous two months, the sergeant repeatedly had told him to close all of his cases before the end of his shifts, as policy requires.

"Your complete disregard toward my directive was evident upon checking your reports that are still incomplete and in some cases not written at all," the sergeant wrote.

A few weeks later, Alvarado's supervisor reprimanded him for making "no effort to complete said cases."

Over the next three years, many letters followed.

In January 2007, open cases still plagued Alvarado's work. When another reprimand failed to correct the issue, the sergeant issued Alvarado a letter of reprimand for insubordination.

"Your complete disregard for my directive is a blatant act of insubordination," he wrote.

A few months later, Alvarado's incomplete cases were disrupting court appointments, and a lieutenant recommended a one-day suspension.

In January 2008, Alvarado was suspended for one day for failing to show up for assignments.

He'd been scheduled to teach a grant-funded gang prevention class at a middle school. When the school's principal called the school district about the missing officer, a lieutenant called Alvarado and asked him where he was.

At the middle school, Alvarado said.

He arrived there 30 minutes later.

"Any further incidents of failing to follow a directive, an assignment, or violating practices will result in immediate termination of your employment," the suspension letter stated.

Later that year, Alvarado was four hours late to an assignment. Asked why, Alvarado said he'd told a clerk he couldn't make it.

But the clerk said "she does not remember you telling her anything like that," a letter of reprimand states. "We recommend immediate termination of your employment."

A few days later, Alvarado's bosses learned of even more violations, including more than 120 emails about his duties in the grant program that Alvarado had ignored.

But Alvarado was not fired. He was removed from the grant program and suspended for three days.

More violations followed.

In two separate cases, Alvarado was suspended for collecting evidence that disappeared, including an MP3 player and fingerprint cards.

In a letter for the latter case, a supervisor sent Alvarado a warning that must have sounded familiar.

"Be advised that due to your past history of violations, reprimands and suspensions, any further incidents will result in a recommendation to terminate your employment with Northside ISD."

The shooting

The homeowner was scared.

Someone had jumped over her fence in the 200 block of Roswell Canyon and entered her small shed, where her husband stored Christmas decorations, paint cans and a sledgehammer.

The retired nurse was inside with her two daughters and 3-year-old granddaughter.

"He went into the shed and I feared that he was going to get something and come after us," she recalled in a deposition.

The person in the shed was Lopez. Despite his supervisor's directive, Alvarado was speeding down the suburban street in pursuit.

The homeowner rushed to a window in her kitchen and screamed to a neighbor, who immediately saw the patrol car and flagged it down.

The homeowner went outside to meet the officer. Alvarado drew his gun "when he came up the driveway," she recalled.

No one saw the shooting. But inside the house, the homeowner and her daughters heard a gunshot about 45 seconds after Alvarado entered the backyard.

In a report, Alvarado wrote that he was approaching the shed with his gun drawn when the door flew open, hitting him in the face. No witness recalled seeing any injuries to the officer's face after the shooting.

"The suspect bull rushed his way out of the shed and lunged right at me," Alvarado wrote. "The suspect was literally inches away from me, and I feared for my safety."

Tracing the bullet's path into the boy's chest as it ricocheted off the pancreas, colon, right liver and left kidney and exited the stomach, an autopsy report notes a lack of gunpowder on Lopez's bloodstained T-shirt.

"There is no evidence of close range firing of the wound," the report concludes.

The homeowner saw the officer carrying the boy out of the shed and putting him "on the grass, on the ground," she said. She grabbed a bath towel and ran outside.

Applying pressure to the wound with the officer, she asked, "Why did you shoot him?"

"He came at me," he told her.

A paramedic who lived next door ran into the backyard.

The boy looked bad: Sweaty and clammy, his skin was ashen and cool. He was taking short, gasping breaths. A pulse was barely there.

As for the officer, "He looked a little dazed or distant," the paramedic said. "He needed someone to tell him what to do."

The paramedic called for AirLife.

In the patrol car, the boy from the bus stop was talking to his mother on the cellphone when he heard the gunshot and dropped the phone. Rushing to the car, his mother saw her son with watery eyes, "just staring."

At one point, the mother told a witness, "He shot him? Why did he shoot him? He didn't have to shoot him."

Still alive, Lopez was carried to the front yard on a tarp, and officers and paramedics converged on the scene. The mother saw a female officer wiping blood from the boy's mouth, saying, "Mijo, it's OK."

Her son recalled Alvarado telling another officer that he had "panicked" when he fired.

Before Lopez died, one of the homeowner's daughters went outside. She had been frightened when she saw him go into the shed, but now she felt something else.

"I just remember his mouth moving a little bit," she said. "That's when I saw his braces. And that's when I realized that it was a little boy."

2010 NISD Shooting

Media: San Antonio Express-News

THE OFFICER: Northside Independent School District Police Officer Daniel Alvarado shot and killed a student in the backyard of a house the youth had run to in order to avoid detection.

THE OFFICER: Northside Independent School District Police Officer Daniel Alvarado shot and killed a student in the backyard of a house the youth had run to in order to avoid detection.

Photo: Courtesy Photo

Photo: Courtesy Photo

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THE OFFICER: Northside Independent School District Police Officer Daniel Alvarado shot and killed a student in the backyard of a house the youth had run to in order to avoid detection.

THE OFFICER: Northside Independent School District Police Officer Daniel Alvarado shot and killed a student in the backyard of a house the youth had run to in order to avoid detection.